POLITICAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6074, 11 January 1898, Page 4

POLITICAL.

ME C. LEWIS- AT THE T_S£ATEE ROYAL/ Mr Charles Lewis, one of ths -representatives of the City of Christcliurcli- in Parliament, addressed a public meeting of his constituents at the Theatre Royal last night. There was a good attendance, tho auditorium being nearly filled. Mr Charles Louisson, Mayor of Christchurch, occupied the chair. Mr Lewis, who was received with applausP, said that anything he might say about the Opposition must not be regarded as an official utterance, but only as the expression of opinion of a privute member, though of one who had good opportunities of kuowing what was going on. He briefly reviewed the first session of the present Parliament, saying that the Opposition had facilitated in' every possible way the departure of the Premier to represent the colony at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, but thought that if he then had a month in England it would be ample for all requirements, and that the House should meet three Aveeks or a month before his return, deal with the Address-in-Reply and the usual crop of local Bills, and clear the way for taking business of more general importance on the Premier's return. The refusal of the Government supporters to do this aud to meet the Opposition in Parliament in the absence of their leaner, amply justified all that the Opposition had said about the present being a one-man Government. (Oh ! oh !) Had the Opposition's proposal been adopted last session would have been of the ordinary length, yet the members of the Opposition had been loaded with abuse because they would not agree to the arrangement as- to pairs which the Government supporters,, towards the close of last session, proposed in order that they might "eat their Christmas dinners at home," because the Opposition would not relieve the Government supporters from the inconvenience which they had put upon themselves, and which the Opposition were prepared to share with them. (Applause). LAST SESSION. As to the session just concluded, he did not think any body of men ever worked harder or did less. That was due to the absolute confusion which existed in the House, and to what was termed obstruction. The confusion was discreditable in the, last degree to those responsible for it. Members had no opportunity of getting at the business they had been sent there to transact. Some of the mcst important committees were not set up till they had been eight weeks in session. Bills were placed before them in such a shape as to be wholly unintelligible, and to some were added new clauses more important than the Bills themselves. On the last day o£ the session the Governmentput before them a Bill of thirty-seven clauses, each of which was practically a local Bill, dealing with the sale, leasing and disposal of reserves, endowments, and Crown and jNative lands in many districts, but the members representing those districts had not been consulted and knew nothing as to the provisions of the Bill. What had been called the obstruction of the Opposition arose from the fact that the Premier was unwilling or unable to recognise that he had to encounter a different House from the previous one, in which he had had a majority of twenty-five instead of seven, and, it took eight weeks to show him 'that he was wrong. He would show what was and what was not obstruction from the stand-point" of the Government. The Minister of Lands was not obstructing the proper conduct of public business when he refused to answer his (Mr Lewis's) question asking information as to the working of the Advances to Settlers Department, but he (Mr Lewis) was obstructing it when he moved the adjournment of the House in order to extract that information to which the public had a right. It was not obstructing public business when Ministers attempted to set up an important committee of ten members, with only one Oppositionist on it instead of a fair proportion ; when they allowed questions to accumulate unanswered on the Order Paper to an unprecedented extent, when they refused to give information on the Estimates ; but when the Opposition protested and fought against, that state ol things they were obstructing the proper conduct of public business. Mr Lewis defended the tactics of the Opposition in stonewalling during the consideration of the Old Age Pensions Bill, as being a protest against being compelled to sit for unreasonably long hours, He remarked that at the end of eight weeks in the earlier part of the session the Premier had been forced into conceding the demands of the Opposition, and that it appeared that the Premier's strength, of which they had heard so much in the last Parliament, was merely the strength of a man with a majority of twenty-five at his back ; that at the end of last session the triple armour of brass in which the Premier's self-sufficiency and autocratic spirit had enveloped him showed signs of giving way. (Interruption.) He said that the Left Wing and the Opposition were agreed as to certain privileges of tho House and rights of members -which the Premier was inclined to trample upon, and hence had fought together on those grounds against the common foe. The Opposition had had to fight hard to wring from the Government fair representation on the Standing Committees of the House. They claimed that they should be represented thereon in the same proportion as they were in the House — in the proportion of two to three — and in the end they got it. Then they claimed, quite fairly, that they should be consulted aa to what members of their party should be appointed on these committees, but the Government took the line that instead of being consulted they should be insulted. They contended that as the Premier had no voice in the selection of the members sent by the Opposition in the country to represent it in the House, so he had no right or power to say who should represent it on the committees, and to a great extent they carried their point. THE NO-CONFIDENCE MOTION. Mr Lewis referred to Mr Rolleston's motion, which the Premier had taken as one of no-confidence, but a more harmless and thoroughly platonic motion had never been moved. It merely affirmed that it was inconsistent with the principles that should guide the administration of public affairs that Ministers should hold positions in connection with syndicates or companies which would be likely to bring them iuto relations with departments of State; that a Minister should not be a director of a company which had been formed to obtain concessions from the Government of which that Minister was a member. The Premier and the great body of the Liberal party had negatived the motion ; and it had thus been placed imperishably on record that in the opinion of the great Liberal party it was desirable that Ministers should be directoi'3 of companies which would be likely to bring them into relations with departments of State. Referring' to the debate on the no-confidence motion Mr Lewis said that one or two interesting facts had been brought out. The Government had admitted having sent Mr Gordon, inspector of mines, to expedite Mr Zimau's operations by preparing the supplementary report of Sept. 16, 1895, which had been used as a prospectus on the London market. He (Mr Lewis) had moved that all correspondence between the Government and Mi* Zimau on the question should be laid on the table, but his motion had never been allowed to como on. One explanation of the action of Ministers in preventing it might be that, as had been proved in connection with the initial negotiations in relation to a certain transfer of Jil'-0.000 betweeu th^e Bank of New Zealand and the Colonial Bank, there was no correspondence to produce. THE ADVANCES TO SETTLERS BILL. Mr Lewis defended his opposition to the Advances to Settlers Bill on the ground that it was opposed to good government and the principles of democracy that one man, the Minister of Lands, should have power, as the Bill proposed, to spend half a million :i year without parliamentary control — (applause) — though he (Mr LeAvis) was in accord with the principle of buying private lands and

;cuttiog tbem up for settlement.. He I thought that, before buying more' lands : for. settlement, they should carry out the [ promises- made to the settlers in the Ivortb. ' Island, who had been induced to take up land there, four and five years ago, by promises of roads and bridges which were nob made yet. He considered that men talnsg up settlement sections should be allowed to deposit money with the Govern__ant io go in reduction of their rent, and when a man had deposited the full value of his section he should cease to pay rent, though his land should remain the property of the Government, and subject to all the conditions as to disposing of it Sec. (Applause). He thought that °to cut up blocks near a town for close settlement, without providing that only residents in 0* near the town should ballot for them, would draw men to the towns and increase the number of those there in want of work. THE TKCHNICAIi ETIUCAOJIOS BILL., He had thought, when* the Technical Education Bill was introduced, that it would be better to spend: the money, devoted to technical education in establishing half a dozen good-sized schools rather than to sprinkle it all over the colony iv driblets. He condemned the action of the Premier in refusing to accept the amendments of his own supporters making it certain that the Bill would not be made a moans of helping denominational schools. OLD AGE PENSIONS. s Men, Mr Lewis said, who had honestly tried to lick the Old Age Pensions Bill into workable shape had been covered with execration, while others who had blindly voted for it on its title had been held up as patterns. He had voted for the second reading to see if they could lick it into some sort of shape in committee. It was audi a Bill as had never been passed in any English-speaking country, an experiment of which no one could foresee the result, and which would involve an expenditure equal to the interest on a loan of six millions. He claimed that the Opposition and the Left "Wing had considered the Bill much more carefully than the Government supporters, very many of whom hal absented themselves from the discussions an- bad merely voted blindly. In support of his contention he quoted figures showing that 40 Government supporters had spoken 320 times and mo*/ed 18 amendments on the Bill, that 27 Oppositionists had spoken 440 times and moved 3 amendments, and that 6 members of the Left Wing had spoken 185 times and moved 28 amendments. He considered it very unfair that, as the Bill proposed, a man with property worth £950 — the amount which, with the J2IOO exemption, was reckoned to return an income of J234 per annum — should be allowed the pension, while a man without property, but earning £1 a week, was not entitled to it. He contended that no proper provision had been made for raising tlie funds required under the Bill, and said that if it were a proper thing to reduce the expenditure on roads and bridges, the subsidies to local bodies and the pay of Civil servants,»to raise such funds, they should be reduced whether the Bill passed or not. He regretted having had to vote against the third reading, but thought that, in the interest of the people as a whole, the Bill should be postponed for a year. He read Mr Pirani's remarks strongly condemning the Bill in its present form. He thought a Commission should be appointed to iuquire into the working of the charitable aid system ; that that system should be worked hand in hand with an old age pension scheme, and that both should be under local control • that the Government should establish a Civil Service superannuation scheme, and should assist friendly societies by providing safe investments at a full rate of interest, say, 4 per cent ; that applicants seventy years old should receive larger pensions than those of sixty-five 5 that a man of sixtyfive, not wishing to draw his pension, should be allowed to let it accumulate; that, as years went on, the qualifying term of twenty years' residence should be extended, and that Government should introduce some scheme of insurance against sickness as well as against the time of old age. Most young people, he thought, could afford to pay into such a scheme. CONCLUSION, Mr Lewis concluded by' saying that there was no great desire on the part of the Opposition for office. (Laughter and interruption.) If any members of Opposition should be called upon to assume office they would do so in exactly the ] same spirit and for exactly the same reasons which had led men like himself to become candidates for Parliament. He thanked the audience for their patient hearing. (Prolonged applause.) QUESTIONS. A number of questions were asked, most of which Mr Lewis had dealt with in his address. In reply to others, he said that the position his party took up in opposing the Old Age Pensions Bill was, that in the interests of the majority, it was better to defer the whole question for another year in order that the measure might have further consideration before it was placed on the Statute Book. He had had nothing to do with the purchase of fifty acres of land at Heathcote Valley for a village settlement, and knew nothing of the matter until after the sale had been completed. The matter had been one entirely for the Minister of Lands. He was quite 1 prepared to give an old 'age pension to those who were deserving of it, and to those who . wanted it, but objected to its being made universal. The reason why he wished to have the money for such a scheme • voted annually was to give an opportunity to traverse the administration of the Government. He was not in favour of the abolition of the Upper House, as it had not retarded [progressive legislation, as was shown byi the number of measures which had been carried into law; but he wa? prepared to discuss any scheme for its reform. It should not be competent, however, for expiring Ministries to appoint members to it as had been done. Mr "W. Eeece moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr Lewis for his straightforward, and instructive address, and of confidence in him for the way he had represented the constituency in Parliament. The motion was seconded by Mr Blearly. Mr Billcliff moved an amendment, thanking Mr Lewis for his address, but protesting against his action on the Old Age Pensions Bill. > The amendment was seconded by Mr Littlecott, and upon being put to the 'meeting was declared lost amidst some confusion, the number of hands held up for and against it appearing to bo about equal. The Chairman then put the original motion, which he declared carried, amidst cries of "It's lost," the number of hands against the motion appearing to be larger than those in its favour. A vote of thanks to the Chairman, moved by Mr Lewis, concluded the proceedings.